"Every small
farmer whose barren acres were covered with mortgages, whose
debts pressed heavily upon him, or whose roving spirit gave him
no peace, was eager to sell his homestead for what it would bring
and begin life anew on the banks of the Muskingum or the Ohio."*
Land companies were then just as optimistic and persuasive as
they are today, and the attractions of the western country lost
nothing in the telling. Pamphlets described the climate as
luxurious, the soil as inexhaustible, the rainfall as both
abundant and well distributed, the crops as unfailingly
bountiful; paid agents went among the people assuring them that a
man of push and courage could nowhere be so prosperous and so
happy as in the West.
* McMaster, "History of the People of the United States," vol.
III, p. 461.
As early as 1787 an observer at Pittsburgh reported that in six
weeks he saw fifty flatboats set off for the downriver
settlements; in 1788 forty-five hundred emigrants were said to
have passed Fort Harmar between February and June. Most of these
people were bound for Kentucky or Tennessee.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122